MTA Long Island Rail Road will provide additional trains to and from Penn Station during the extended New Year's holiday period beginning Friday afternoon December 28 through New Year's Day, Tuesday, January 1.

After more than a month of around-the-clock work in one of the most storm-ravaged sections of the MTA transit system, <img src="/siteimages/subwaybullets/r.png" alt="R Subway Line Symbol" border="0"> trains resumed service through the Montague Tube, which connects Brooklyn Heights with Lower Manhattan on Friday morning, December 21.

The MTA Board has approved the agency's 2013 budget and four-year financial plan, preserving the continuing roll-out of subway, bus and railroad service increases identified last spring, and adopting a fare and toll increase that was proposed in October and amended over recent weeks in response to public comment.

MTA Long Island Rail Road has unwrapped a holiday schedule featuring 10 extra trains to help customers heading home early Friday afternoon, December 21, and again on Monday, Christmas Eve. The additional service from Penn Station will begin each day at 12:46 PM and run through 3:48 PM on six branches of the Railroad.

The MTA Board has approved the agency's 2013 budget and four-year financial plan, preserving the continuing roll-out of subway, bus and railroad service increases identified last spring, and adopting a fare and toll increase that was proposed in October and amended over recent weeks in response to public comment.

In a ceremony at the current terminal of the temporary free H subway shuttle, Gabrielle Shubert, the Director of the New York Transit Museum, and Darren Kornblut, Manager of the Museum's online store presented a check worth $15,000 to The Graybeards, a not-for-profit organization working to rebuild the Rockaways after extensive damage suffered during Hurricane Sandy.

Don't be surprised if you get a MetroCard swathed in green this holiday season. It means your MetroCard carries one of the second crop of advertisements to appear under the MTA's new effort to raise revenue by selling ad space on MetroCards.

To make traveling easier for commuters who live in the Rockaways but need to travel to other parts of Queens, to Brooklyn or Manhattan, MTA Bus Company, New York City Transit and Nassau Inter-County Express (NICE) have made the necessary software changes to allow three legged (one-fare) transfers and a three-hour transfer period between some buses and subways.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority announced today that, beginning Monday, December 17, it will add a free transfer to the B70 bus from the S53 to provide Staten Island veterans access to the Brooklyn VA Hospital without having to pay an additional fare.

The MTA is making it easier to file a claim if the 30-day unlimited MetroCard<sup>&#174;</sup> or 7-day Express Bus Plus MetroCard you purchased with a credit or debit card at an MTA vending machine is ever lost or stolen.